Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [164]
*****
King Belaur was wont to partake of evenfeast at about the time lesser men sought their morning meal. He would dine heavily on fresh fish slathered in fresh-frothed cream, and then turn to venison and hare cooked in spiced wine. When he felt full to bursting, he'd retire to the royal chambers to sleep his belly's load off. He awoke now, stretched, and strolled naked into his larger, more public bedchamber. Belaur expected to find there fresh minted wine and warmer, livelier entertainment.
This day, rising to the waking world amid the thunders of a strange dream of shakings and rumblings, he was not disappointed. In fact, he was pleased to see two women waiting in the ornate and gigantic bed. One was the woman who'd led that Moonclaws thieving band. Isparla 'Serpenthips' glittered, languorous and dangerous, amid the cushions. Smiling at him in her collar and hip-string of jewels, she looked like a cat strung with diamonds, and trembling beside her was the new wench he'd noticed the evening before outside a midtown bakery. Unclad, the new arrival was even more entrancing than he'd hoped. She wore only the spell-chains magelords used to make defiant prisoners more biddable, and for the occasion someone had polished the links and the collars encircling her wrist, ankles, and throat so they gleamed as bright as Isparla's jewels.
Belaur met her eyes with a savage grin, snatched up a goblet and a decanter from the shining row atop a nearby board, and expressed his approval with a long, rumbling snarl as he strode to the bed. Like a purring lion he lowered himself between them, quaffing wine lazily, and wondered which pleasure to enjoy first. The new treasure… or save her, turning first to familiar delights?
Isparla gave a low, throaty purr of her own, and moved her body against him. The king cast a look at Shandathe, lying anxious and still in her chains, and then smiled and turned away from her. He laid a cruel hand on a rope of jewels, and pulled. Serpenthips hissed in pain as the stones cut into her and she was dragged against him. Belaur bent his mouth to hers, intending to bite. He remembered earlier tastes of her warm, salty blood…
There was a sudden flash and a singing sound, and Belaur looked up, startled, into a gaze as frowning as his own. The mage royal of Athalantar stood beside the bed. Belaur cast a quick look down the room at the still-barred doors and back at the master of magelords before he roared, "What are you playing at now, wizard?"
"We're under attack," Undarl snarled at the king. "Come! Up and out of here, if you would live!"
"Who dares-?"
"We'll have time to ask them who they are later. Now move, or I'll blast your head from your shoulders… all I need to take is the crown!"
Face dark with fury, Belaur heaved himself up from the bed, spilling wenches in both directions, and snatched down the sword that hung on the wall. For an instant, he considered thrusting it into the back of the mage royal, who was striding down the room to a painting that could be swung aside to reveal a way up into the old castle. Undarl turned with more speed than the swiftest sword in Belaur's bodyguard, drawing aside from the extended point of the blade, and said in a cold, clear, menacing voice: "Don't. Ever. Even. Think. Of. Such. A. Deed." He leaned closer, and added in a harsh whisper, "Your daily survival depends on my magic."
The blade in the king's hand turned into a snake that reared up and hissed at him, throwing coils around his wrist.
As he stared at it in frozen horror, it slid back into sword shape, and flashed mockingly once. Belaur shuddered, reluctantly turned his gaze to meet the hard points of the magelord's cold eyes, and managed a nod. Then he moved forward obediently as Undarl gestured at the passage door.
*****
"Ye know I must do this alone," Elminster said quietly as they stood together in the darkened passage.
Myrjala laid a hand on his arm, and gave him a smile. "I shall not be far. Call if you want me."
El saluted her with the stump of the